The Great British Summer

Apparently it isn’t a myth and England does get bathed in sunshine!?! Considering we were forced to take another long weekend due to a bank holiday it became our mission to see if we could experience this phenomenon and try our hand at camping in England without rain.

Cornwall was the destination, the deep south of England. We tried our hand at hiring a car this time for a bit of independence and with 4 of us it wouldn’t be so expensive. Having felt the pain of trying to drive anywhere on a long weekend in NZ, we pre-empted traffic jams and woes and decided to hire a car from Heathrow airport – a mere 1 hour away on the tube.

Fortunately for us Chris managed to borrow a sat-nav from work, without this I have no idea what we would have done – in fact, what did people do before these? I am sure the percentage of breakups after road trips would have been higher. After some initial teething problems, ie figuring out how to leave Heathrow airport and actually get onto the motorway we were on our way.

It was always the plan to stop in Cheddar, not just for the outstanding cheese (yes Cheddar is actually a place and no surprises they are famous for cheddar cheese), but for the Cheddar Gorge. The super sat-nav somehow led us right into the heart of it and after initial thoughts of wanting to see all the touristy things on offer we discovered it was going to cost us £16 so we were put off and decided to wander up the gorge on foot and take in the scenery instead. Our minds were fixated on cheese though, so beautiful as it was we didn’t stick around too long instead choosing to fill bags with cheese, as well as the bread and chutney to go with the cheese, for our camping adventure.

After a mixed bag of traffic, we arrived in Penzance happy to be out of the car. After a quick wander round and much needed stop for provisions we headed to our campsite which was in-between St Ives and Penzance, literally in the middle of nowhere! It was a great campsite though, with everything we could need, including its own bar, games room, and tattoo dispensing machine (for the bogans amongst us of course - Chris got spiderman, I got a fairy and Amy a cat, Andrew obviously didnt want to embrace his bogan roots so opted to be free of the tatt). Being the city dwellers we now are we also took great delight in feeding the cows in the next paddock.

It seemed wrong to leave comfort of the campsite so we settled in for the night with our cheese from cheddar and cider from Cornwall. After gobbling that lot down we moseyed over to the camp bar and games room. Frantic games of table tennis as well as gossiping with the locals filled in the rest of the evening until everything got shut up for the night.

We were all reminded of the horrors of cider the next morning, waking to a cracking headache and in need of a greasy spoon for breakfast. The sun was shining though and we had a day of fun planned so there was no time for moping. First stop was St Michaels Mount in Penzance which is a tidal island joined to the mainland by a man-made granite causeway. The castle looked ok, but we must have turned into either castle snobs or stooges as we didnt think it was special enough to pay £7 to see in!

From there we thought we would tick off seeing Lands End, the furthest southern point in England. In true English style, they spoiled a good landscape by dumping some chavy looking tourist complex there. After waiting for all the other people to get their photos beneath the unimpressive sign we took our snaps and moved on to walk a little around the surrounding tracks.

Chris was getting edgy though and keen to see if there was any surf at the beach so we took off to Sennen. Being the gorgeous sunny day it was, every other person was at the beach too, it seems that no matter where you go in England, peace and quiet is hard to find. The waves werent suitable enough, so instead we stopped for a cornish pastie, cream tea and just people watched. The water was also ridiculously cold...no going in without a 5mm wetsuit!

Our day in the sun was getting all a bit too much and feeling "sun kissed" (ok burnt) it was back to the campsite. Our friendly campsite owner recommended St Just for dinner at a local pub. The food was great, portion sizes ridiculous and the locals were friendly. We rounded off the night with a darts competition, and before Chris sends out an individual email to tell you all, he was the winner by a long shot! Darts is not my fortee is seems...

Next morning we packed up the campsite before the rain set in, ah the great british summer we had come to know was here, and drove straight to the Minack Theatre. Now when I say straight what I really mean is despite having a sat-nav, it only really works if you put the right coordinates in (not naming and shaming but Chris take note...), we ended up driving down the narrowest country roads into the middle of nowhere! Finally after setting the sat-nav straight we arrived at the Minack Theatre which is an open-air theatre constructed above a gully with a rocky granite outcrop jutting into the sea. It was built by Rowena Cade who owned the house and wanted a place to have outdoor theatre. She basically built it all by hand, lugging materials up and down the steep landscape and carving and building seats and steps into the rock face. Performances are still held in the theatre now.

Having no time left to see any other sites, it was back into the car for the long journey back to London. Freakishly though, on one of our random toilet stops we bumped into Chris' Uncle and his family - that is no easy feat in a country with millions of people living there! We zipped past Stonehenge and took a high speed photo, and in good time arrived back at Heathrow.

Our summer camping weekend was over, and despite a few drops of rain we were impressed! Cornwall is definitely a different world to London, the people are friendly for a start. It has prompted us to try out more of these weekends in England...although our next planned trip is Barcelona, so maybe next summer.